Old MX Bike Memories

Regrettably the November 2018 bush fires at Paradise, California USA claimed many lives & many homes. One of the victims was Paul Hunt whose bikes are featured below. Paul escaped with his dog, and a small bag of clothes.

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Here's a really rare beast! Paul Hunt from USA built this bike for Harley-Davidson in 1969 when they owned the Italian motorcycle marque Aer Macchi.

They thought it would be competitive in the 350cc class. It wasn't & they went no further, except Paul rode it well. Tim Gibbes had a ride on it & found it was like riding a piece of lead!

Harley "Sprint" 350cc that Paul Hunt rode in the Mexican 1000 and won the Greenhorn on.
Paul found it again & has just restored it to original in 2017.

His next project for 2017 > Just got a Sammy Miller replica frame for a 500cc Ariel, so will start on a Miller GOV132 replica!

Paul commented - "My kid" (a 70 year old friend) rode all of the ARMA races and won National #1 on my Cheney B50.------------------------------------

Ex patriot New Zealander, Luke Taylor has just acquired this immaculate Lindstrom from Italy, a rare bike but very competitive in its day

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A 1962 motocross version of Guzzi Falcone 500 cc, from the Gian Pio Ottone Museum, was displayed at Imola MX re-union on 2014. The enginewas tilted andnot horizontalas in thestreetclassic model. An experiment without good results.
Middle photo - Perfect geometric performance of PS (Polizia Stradale) on GUZZI "FALCONE" 500 CC. The green color was for the PS, the red was the classic color of Guzzi.

Steve Gallichan who has his own Vintage MX bike museum in New Plymouth, NZ has a real challenge this time!

His latest bike to restore after the Swedish Lindstrom shown below, scroll down further, is this English 1969 Sprite frame with Maico square barrel engine.

Their frames were called BVM in Europe, Alron in Australia, American Eagle in USA Iam told.

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Arthur Harris from UK riding a Triumph/Harris leading Tim Gibbes riding an AMC engined Greeves at Hawkesbury near Blenheim during the 1964 International MX Series

Photo from Ron Hebberd.

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The Ron Hebberd Motorcycle Museum at Seddon Near Blenheim, South Island, New Zealand

For Viewing phone Ron at 03 5757196. Donation to Council rates appreciated!

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The Steve Gallichan Museum at New Plymouth, New Zealand

Bultaco 125 Pursang MK6, 1973 restored by Steve Gallichan from New Plymouth & displayed in his VMX Museum. The Pursang was formerly owned by Tim Gibbes & also ridden by Mimi Berthomier from New Caledonia during one his several visits to New Zealand.

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Scroll down to see more details of this Lindstrom motor & chassis that Steve Gallichan from New Plymouth is restoring. The engine arrived as a bucket of bits, a few months ago. Steve has assemble it all now, October, 2012 but will strip it down again to vapour blast & paint it. Great piece of restoration, Steve

The Lindstrom 360 motor is welded up and ready for paint, scroll down to see it. We will have more pics later as the restoration continues & when painted.

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Flink & Lindstrom MX Bikes - do you know of them?

If you want to look at many of the Swedish special MX & other bikes, such as Lindstrom, one of which is in New Zealand being restored, & the Flink, quite a revolutionary bike for its time go to this website & spend some time. A lot of the site can be translated into English.

Mats Sjoblom is the creator and although our old friend Gunnar Lindstrom assisted in some places, Mats is the instigator.

Steve Gallichan from New Plymouth has sent these photos of a Lindstrom he has aquired with the engine in bits too. Steve will restore it to its former glory, as he has with numerous other vintage MX & enduro bikes on display at his New Plymouth location.

This Lindstrom has numbers 2885 or 2685 stamped on steering head, so he would like to get more of its history & age, if you can help please.

These bikes were constructed by Gote Lindstrom in Sweden, during the heydays of the Swedish Husqvarna MX bikes domination of World Championship MX

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Some more leaflets from Taranaki leaflet collector enthusiast Graham Miles, always loking for more too!

71 Husqvarna Mk 2 Pursang

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Do you remember these bikes? Bultaco were made in Spain & folded many years ago although a similar name has rekindled since.

But Bultaco were very good in both Trials & MX, plus a little bit in road racing, where Kiwi Ginger Molloy excelled in the 60's, in fact still rides Bultaco in Classic races now!

Bultaco 125 Pursangs on the left & the blue one on the right was a Pursang 250. They also made a "Bandito" 360 in black & white by memory. All were quite fast but peaky in power.

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Bultaco's business expertise wasn't great & their filing system, orders & deliveries lacked quite a bit. Here was one of my experiences when I was importing Bultaco!!

Bultaco bikes go missing!

About 30 new Bultacos in a container are there for the finding!

Along with other things I, or should I say Tim Gibbes Motors Ltd., was Bultaco importer for NZ a long time ago, probably about 1970 to 1976.

At the time their trials bikes were good, but the company was almost impossible to deal with as their filing system was a large dining room table with all papers piled high, with an open door each side to blow the papers about.

After ordering & paying for a container of Bultaco I waited several months but called them often to always be told "yes they're coming!".

But they never came. So I claimed on my insurance. After 2 years or so the insurance co. got back to me to say they had located the container, BUT it was at the bottom of the Mediteranean.

Apparently they had been loaded on to a ship in Portugal, but just at that time there was civil unrest & riots at the port, so the ship hurriedly left port, but to gain speed more quickly flicked off its container load as it headed out to sea! So the end result was that I never did get the bikes & because it was because of riots the insurance wasn't valid either! Oh dear, yet another life challenge!

Oh & by the way Marine Insurance on goods being shipped is null & void in the case of a civil war, riot, war of any sort & in fact even if the goods get dropped between the side of the ship & the wharf, so compensation never happened!

I'm attaching a couple of pics showing my "Bultaco Corolla" rally car, & what the Bultaco Sherpa's were good at doing. Notice the variety of brands on our shop front - Bultaco, Greeves, Harley Davidson, Mikuni Carburettors, then add to that other brands we imported because we enjoyed motorcycling - Sammy Miller Products, Husqvarna, Moto Guzzi plus a few others.